Request - Simplified HTTP client



Super simple to use

Request is designed to be the simplest way possible to make http calls. It supports HTTPS and follows redirects by default.

``js
var request = require('request');
request('http://www.google.com', function (error, response, body) {
if (!error && response.statusCode == 200) {
console.log(body) // Show the HTML for the Google homepage.
}
})
`

Table of contents

- Streaming
- Forms
- HTTP Authentication
- Custom HTTP Headers
- OAuth Signing
- Proxies
- Unix Domain Sockets
- TLS/SSL Protocol
- Support for HAR 1.2
- All Available Options

Request also offers convenience methods like
request.defaults and request.post, and there are
lots of usage examples and several
debugging techniques.


---

Streaming

You can stream any response to a file stream.

`js
request('http://google.com/doodle.png').pipe(fs.createWriteStream('doodle.png'))
`

You can also stream a file to a PUT or POST request. This method will also check the file extension against a mapping of file extensions to content-types (in this case application/json) and use the proper content-type in the PUT request (if the headers don’t already provide one).

`js
fs.createReadStream('file.json').pipe(request.put('http://mysite.com/obj.json'))
`

Request can also pipe to itself. When doing so, content-type and content-length are preserved in the PUT headers.

`js
request.get('http://google.com/img.png').pipe(request.put('http://mysite.com/img.png'))
`

Request emits a "response" event when a response is received. The response argument will be an instance of http.IncomingMessage.

`js
request
.get('http://google.com/img.png')
.on('response', function(response) {
console.log(response.statusCode) // 200
console.log(response.headers['content-type']) // 'image/png'
})
.pipe(request.put('http://mysite.com/img.png'))
`

To easily handle errors when streaming requests, listen to the error event before piping:

`js
request
.get('http://mysite.com/doodle.png')
.on('error', function(err) {
console.log(err)
})
.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('doodle.png'))
`

Now let’s get fancy.

`js
http.createServer(function (req, resp) {
if (req.url === '/doodle.png') {
if (req.method === 'PUT') {
req.pipe(request.put('http://mysite.com/doodle.png'))
} else if (req.method === 'GET' || req.method === 'HEAD') {
request.get('http://mysite.com/doodle.png').pipe(resp)
}
}
})
`

You can also pipe() from http.ServerRequest instances, as well as to http.ServerResponse instances. The HTTP method, headers, and entity-body data will be sent. Which means that, if you don't really care about security, you can do:

`js
http.createServer(function (req, resp) {
if (req.url === '/doodle.png') {
var x = request('http://mysite.com/doodle.png')
req.pipe(x)
x.pipe(resp)
}
})
`

And since pipe() returns the destination stream in ≥ Node 0.5.x you can do one line proxying. :)

`js
req.pipe(request('http://mysite.com/doodle.png')).pipe(resp)
`

Also, none of this new functionality conflicts with requests previous features, it just expands them.

`js
var r = request.defaults({'proxy':'http://localproxy.com'})

http.createServer(function (req, resp) {
if (req.url === '/doodle.png') {
r.get('http://google.com/doodle.png').pipe(resp)
}
})
`

You can still use intermediate proxies, the requests will still follow HTTP forwards, etc.

back to top


---

Forms

request supports application/x-www-form-urlencoded and multipart/form-data form uploads. For multipart/related refer to the multipart API.


#### application/x-www-form-urlencoded (URL-Encoded Forms)

URL-encoded forms are simple.

`js
request.post('http://service.com/upload', {form:{key:'value'}})
// or
request.post('http://service.com/upload').form({key:'value'})
// or
request.post({url:'http://service.com/upload', form: {key:'value'}}, function(err,httpResponse,body){ / ... / })
`


#### multipart/form-data (Multipart Form Uploads)

For multipart/form-data we use the form-data library by @felixge. For the most cases, you can pass your upload form data via the formData option.


`js
var formData = {
// Pass a simple key-value pair
my_field: 'my_value',
// Pass data via Buffers
my_buffer: new Buffer([1, 2, 3]),
// Pass data via Streams
my_file: fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/unicycle.jpg'),
// Pass multiple values /w an Array
attachments: [
fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/attachment1.jpg'),
fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/attachment2.jpg')
],
// Pass optional meta-data with an 'options' object with style: {value: DATA, options: OPTIONS}
// Use case: for some types of streams, you'll need to provide "file"-related information manually.
// See the form-data README for more information about options: https://github.com/form-data/form-data
custom_file: {
value: fs.createReadStream('/dev/urandom'),
options: {
filename: 'topsecret.jpg',
contentType: 'image/jpg'
}
}
};
request.post({url:'http://service.com/upload', formData: formData}, function optionalCallback(err, httpResponse, body) {
if (err) {
return console.error('upload failed:', err);
}
console.log('Upload successful! Server responded with:', body);
});
`

For advanced cases, you can access the form-data object itself via r.form(). This can be modified until the request is fired on the next cycle of the event-loop. (Note that this calling form() will clear the currently set form data for that request.)

`js
// NOTE: Advanced use-case, for normal use see 'formData' usage above
var r = request.post('http://service.com/upload', function optionalCallback(err, httpResponse, body) {...})
var form = r.form();
form.append('my_field', 'my_value');
form.append('my_buffer', new Buffer([1, 2, 3]));
form.append('custom_file', fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/unicycle.jpg'), {filename: 'unicycle.jpg'});
`
See the form-data README for more information & examples.


#### multipart/related

Some variations in different HTTP implementations require a newline/CRLF before, after, or both before and after the boundary of a multipart/related request (using the multipart option). This has been observed in the .NET WebAPI version 4.0. You can turn on a boundary preambleCRLF or postamble by passing them as true to your request options.

`js
request({
method: 'PUT',
preambleCRLF: true,
postambleCRLF: true,
uri: 'http://service.com/upload',
multipart: [
{
'content-type': 'application/json',
body: JSON.stringify({foo: 'bar', _attachments: {'message.txt': {follows: true, length: 18, 'content_type': 'text/plain' }}})
},
{ body: 'I am an attachment' },
{ body: fs.createReadStream('image.png') }
],
// alternatively pass an object containing additional options
multipart: {
chunked: false,
data: [
{
'content-type': 'application/json',
body: JSON.stringify({foo: 'bar', _attachments: {'message.txt': {follows: true, length: 18, 'content_type': 'text/plain' }}})
},
{ body: 'I am an attachment' }
]
}
},
function (error, response, body) {
if (error) {
return console.error('upload failed:', error);
}
console.log('Upload successful! Server responded with:', body);
})
`

back to top


---

HTTP Authentication

`js
request.get('http://some.server.com/').auth('username', 'password', false);
// or
request.get('http://some.server.com/', {
'auth': {
'user': 'username',
'pass': 'password',
'sendImmediately': false
}
});
// or
request.get('http://some.server.com/').auth(null, null, true, 'bearerToken');
// or
request.get('http://some.server.com/', {
'auth': {
'bearer': 'bearerToken'
}
});
`

If passed as an option, auth should be a hash containing values:

- user || username
- pass || password
- sendImmediately (optional)
- bearer (optional)

The method form takes parameters
auth(username, password, sendImmediately, bearer).

sendImmediately defaults to true, which causes a basic or bearer
authentication header to be sent. If sendImmediately is false, then
request will retry with a proper authentication header after receiving a
401 response from the server (which must contain a WWW-Authenticate header
indicating the required authentication method).

Note that you can also specify basic authentication using the URL itself, as
detailed in RFC 1738. Simply pass the
user:password before the host with an @ sign:

`js
var username = 'username',
password = 'password',
url = 'http://' + username + ':' + password + '@some.server.com';

request({url: url}, function (error, response, body) {
// Do more stuff with 'body' here
});
`

Digest authentication is supported, but it only works with sendImmediately
set to false; otherwise request will send basic authentication on the
initial request, which will probably cause the request to fail.

Bearer authentication is supported, and is activated when the bearer value is
available. The value may be either a String or a Function returning a
String. Using a function to supply the bearer token is particularly useful if
used in conjunction with defaults to allow a single function to supply the
last known token at the time of sending a request, or to compute one on the fly.

back to top


---

Custom HTTP Headers

HTTP Headers, such as User-Agent, can be set in the options object.
In the example below, we call the github API to find out the number
of stars and forks for the request repository. This requires a
custom User-Agent header as well as https.

`js
var request = require('request');

var options = {
url: 'https://api.github.com/repos/request/request',
headers: {
'User-Agent': 'request'
}
};

function callback(error, response, body) {
if (!error && response.statusCode == 200) {
var info = JSON.parse(body);
console.log(info.stargazers_count + " Stars");
console.log(info.forks_count + " Forks");
}
}

request(options, callback);
`

back to top


---

OAuth Signing

OAuth version 1.0 is supported. The
default signing algorithm is
HMAC-SHA1:

`js
// OAuth1.0 - 3-legged server side flow (Twitter example)
// step 1
var qs = require('querystring')
, oauth =
{ callback: 'http://mysite.com/callback/'
, consumer_key: CONSUMER_KEY
, consumer_secret: CONSUMER_SECRET
}
, url = 'https://api.twitter.com/oauth/request_token'
;
request.post({url:url, oauth:oauth}, function (e, r, body) {
// Ideally, you would take the body in the response
// and construct a URL that a user clicks on (like a sign in button).
// The verifier is only available in the response after a user has
// verified with twitter that they are authorizing your app.

// step 2
var req_data = qs.parse(body)
var uri = 'https://api.twitter.com/oauth/authenticate'
+ '?' + qs.stringify({oauth_token: req_data.oauth_token})
// redirect the user to the authorize uri

// step 3
// after the user is redirected back to your server
var auth_data = qs.parse(body)
, oauth =
{ consumer_key: CONSUMER_KEY
, consumer_secret: CONSUMER_SECRET
, token: auth_data.oauth_token
, token_secret: req_data.oauth_token_secret
, verifier: auth_data.oauth_verifier
}
, url = 'https://api.twitter.com/oauth/access_token'
;
request.post({url:url, oauth:oauth}, function (e, r, body) {
// ready to make signed requests on behalf of the user
var perm_data = qs.parse(body)
, oauth =
{ consumer_key: CONSUMER_KEY
, consumer_secret: CONSUMER_SECRET
, token: perm_data.oauth_token
, token_secret: perm_data.oauth_token_secret
}
, url = 'https://api.twitter.com/1.1/users/show.json'
, qs =
{ screen_name: perm_data.screen_name
, user_id: perm_data.user_id
}
;
request.get({url:url, oauth:oauth, qs:qs, json:true}, function (e, r, user) {
console.log(user)
})
})
})
`

For RSA-SHA1 signing, make
the following changes to the OAuth options object:
* Pass signature_method : 'RSA-SHA1'
* Instead of consumer_secret, specify a private_key string in
PEM format

For PLAINTEXT signing, make
the following changes to the OAuth options object:
* Pass signature_method : 'PLAINTEXT'

To send OAuth parameters via query params or in a post body as described in The
Consumer Request Parameters
section of the oauth1 spec:
* Pass transport_method : 'query' or transport_method : 'body' in the OAuth
options object.
* transport_method defaults to 'header'

To use Request Body Hash you can either
* Manually generate the body hash and pass it as a string body_hash: '...'
* Automatically generate the body hash by passing body_hash: true

back to top


---

Proxies

If you specify a proxy option, then the request (and any subsequent
redirects) will be sent via a connection to the proxy server.

If your endpoint is an https url, and you are using a proxy, then
request will send a CONNECT request to the proxy server first, and
then use the supplied connection to connect to the endpoint.

That is, first it will make a request like:

`
HTTP/1.1 CONNECT endpoint-server.com:80
Host: proxy-server.com
User-Agent: whatever user agent you specify
`

and then the proxy server make a TCP connection to endpoint-server
on port 80, and return a response that looks like:

`
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
`

At this point, the connection is left open, and the client is
communicating directly with the endpoint-server.com machine.

See the wikipedia page on HTTP Tunneling
for more information.

By default, when proxying http traffic, request will simply make a
standard proxied http request. This is done by making the url
section of the initial line of the request a fully qualified url to
the endpoint.

For example, it will make a single request that looks like:

`
HTTP/1.1 GET http://endpoint-server.com/some-url
Host: proxy-server.com
Other-Headers: all go here

request body or whatever
`

Because a pure "http over http" tunnel offers no additional security
or other features, it is generally simpler to go with a
straightforward HTTP proxy in this case. However, if you would like
to force a tunneling proxy, you may set the tunnel option to true.

You can also make a standard proxied http request by explicitly setting
tunnel : false, but **note that this will allow the proxy to see the traffic
to/from the destination server**.

If you are using a tunneling proxy, you may set the
proxyHeaderWhiteList to share certain headers with the proxy.

You can also set the proxyHeaderExclusiveList to share certain
headers only with the proxy and not with destination host.

By default, this set is:

`
accept
accept-charset
accept-encoding
accept-language
accept-ranges
cache-control
content-encoding
content-language
content-length
content-location
content-md5
content-range
content-type
connection
date
expect
max-forwards
pragma
proxy-authorization
referer
te
transfer-encoding
user-agent
via
`

Note that, when using a tunneling proxy, the proxy-authorization
header and any headers from custom proxyHeaderExclusiveList are
never sent to the endpoint server, but only to the proxy server.

$3

The following environment variables are respected by request:

* HTTP_PROXY / http_proxy
* HTTPS_PROXY / https_proxy
* NO_PROXY / no_proxy

When HTTP_PROXY / http_proxy are set, they will be used to proxy non-SSL requests that do not have an explicit proxy configuration option present. Similarly, HTTPS_PROXY / https_proxy will be respected for SSL requests that do not have an explicit proxy configuration option. It is valid to define a proxy in one of the environment variables, but then override it for a specific request, using the proxy configuration option. Furthermore, the proxy configuration option can be explicitly set to false / null to opt out of proxying altogether for that request.

request is also aware of the NO_PROXY/no_proxy environment variables. These variables provide a granular way to opt out of proxying, on a per-host basis. It should contain a comma separated list of hosts to opt out of proxying. It is also possible to opt of proxying when a particular destination port is used. Finally, the variable may be set to * to opt out of the implicit proxy configuration of the other environment variables.

Here's some examples of valid no_proxy values:

* google.com - don't proxy HTTP/HTTPS requests to Google.
google.com:443 - don't proxy HTTPS requests to Google, but do* proxy HTTP requests to Google.
* google.com:443, yahoo.com:80 - don't proxy HTTPS requests to Google, and don't proxy HTTP requests to Yahoo!
- ignore https_proxy/http_proxy environment variables altogether.

back to top


---

UNIX Domain Sockets

request supports making requests to UNIX Domain Sockets. To make one, use the following URL scheme:

`js
/ Pattern / 'http://unix:SOCKET:PATH'
/ Example / request.get('http://unix:/absolute/path/to/unix.socket:/request/path')
`

Note: The SOCKET path is assumed to be absolute to the root of the host file system.

back to top


---

TLS/SSL Protocol

TLS/SSL Protocol options, such as cert, key and passphrase, can be
set directly in options object, in the agentOptions property of the options object, or even in https.globalAgent.options. Keep in mind that, although agentOptions allows for a slightly wider range of configurations, the recommended way is via options object directly, as using agentOptions or https.globalAgent.options would not be applied in the same way in proxied environments (as data travels through a TLS connection instead of an http/https agent).

`js
var fs = require('fs')
, path = require('path')
, certFile = path.resolve(__dirname, 'ssl/client.crt')
, keyFile = path.resolve(__dirname, 'ssl/client.key')
, caFile = path.resolve(__dirname, 'ssl/ca.cert.pem')
, request = require('request');

var options = {
url: 'https://api.some-server.com/',
cert: fs.readFileSync(certFile),
key: fs.readFileSync(keyFile),
passphrase: 'password',
ca: fs.readFileSync(caFile)
}
};

request.get(options);
`

$3

In the example below, we call an API requires client side SSL certificate
(in PEM format) with passphrase protected private key (in PEM format) and disable the SSLv3 protocol:

`js
var fs = require('fs')
, path = require('path')
, certFile = path.resolve(__dirname, 'ssl/client.crt')
, keyFile = path.resolve(__dirname, 'ssl/client.key')
, request = require('request');

var options = {
url: 'https://api.some-server.com/',
agentOptions: {
cert: fs.readFileSync(certFile),
key: fs.readFileSync(keyFile),
// Or use pfx property replacing cert and key when using private key, certificate and CA certs in PFX or PKCS12 format:
// pfx: fs.readFileSync(pfxFilePath),
passphrase: 'password',
securityOptions: 'SSL_OP_NO_SSLv3'
}
};

request.get(options);
`

It is able to force using SSLv3 only by specifying secureProtocol:

`js
request.get({
url: 'https://api.some-server.com/',
agentOptions: {
secureProtocol: 'SSLv3_method'
}
});
`

It is possible to accept other certificates than those signed by generally allowed Certificate Authorities (CAs).
This can be useful, for example, when using self-signed certificates.
To require a different root certificate, you can specify the signing CA by adding the contents of the CA's certificate file to the agentOptions.
The certificate the domain presents must be signed by the root certificate specified:

`js
request.get({
url: 'https://api.some-server.com/',
agentOptions: {
ca: fs.readFileSync('ca.cert.pem')
}
});
`

back to top


---

Support for HAR 1.2

The options.har property will override the values: url, method, qs, headers, form, formData, body, json, as well as construct multipart data and read files from disk when request.postData.params[].fileName is present without a matching value.

a validation step will check if the HAR Request format matches the latest spec (v1.2) and will skip parsing if not matching.

`js
var request = require('request')
request({
// will be ignored
method: 'GET',
uri: 'http://www.google.com',

// HTTP Archive Request Object
har: {
url: 'http://www.mockbin.com/har',
method: 'POST',
headers: [
{
name: 'content-type',
value: 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
}
],
postData: {
mimeType: 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
params: [
{
name: 'foo',
value: 'bar'
},
{
name: 'hello',
value: 'world'
}
]
}
}
})

// a POST request will be sent to http://www.mockbin.com
// with body an application/x-www-form-urlencoded body:
// foo=bar&hello=world
`

back to top


---

request(options, callback)

The first argument can be either a url or an options object. The only required option is uri; all others are optional.

- uri || url - fully qualified uri or a parsed url object from url.parse()
- baseUrl - fully qualified uri string used as the base url. Most useful with request.defaults, for example when you want to do many requests to the same domain. If baseUrl is https://example.com/api/, then requesting /end/point?test=true will fetch https://example.com/api/end/point?test=true. When baseUrl is given, uri must also be a string.
- method - http method (default: "GET")
- headers - http headers (default: {})

---

- qs - object containing querystring values to be appended to the uri
- qsParseOptions - object containing options to pass to the qs.parse method. Alternatively pass options to the querystring.parse method using this format {sep:';', eq:':', options:{}}
- qsStringifyOptions - object containing options to pass to the qs.stringify method. Alternatively pass options to the querystring.stringify method using this format {sep:';', eq:':', options:{}}. For example, to change the way arrays are converted to query strings using the qs module pass the arrayFormat option with one of indices|brackets|repeat
- useQuerystring - If true, use querystring to stringify and parse
querystrings, otherwise use qs (default: false). Set this option to
true if you need arrays to be serialized as foo=bar&foo=baz instead of the
default foo[0]=bar&foo[1]=baz.

---

- body - entity body for PATCH, POST and PUT requests. Must be a Buffer or String, unless json is true. If json is true, then body must be a JSON-serializable object.
- form - when passed an object or a querystring, this sets body to a querystring representation of value, and adds Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded header. When passed no options, a FormData instance is returned (and is piped to request). See "Forms" section above.
- formData - Data to pass for a multipart/form-data request. See
Forms section above.
- multipart - array of objects which contain their own headers and body
attributes. Sends a multipart/related request. See Forms section
above.
- Alternatively you can pass in an object {chunked: false, data: []} where
chunked is used to specify whether the request is sent in
chunked transfer encoding
In non-chunked requests, data items with body streams are not allowed.
- preambleCRLF - append a newline/CRLF before the boundary of your multipart/form-data request.
- postambleCRLF - append a newline/CRLF at the end of the boundary of your multipart/form-data request.
- json - sets body to JSON representation of value and adds Content-type: application/json header. Additionally, parses the response body as JSON.
- jsonReviver - a reviver function that will be passed to JSON.parse() when parsing a JSON response body.

---

- auth - A hash containing values user || username, pass || password, and sendImmediately (optional). See documentation above.
- oauth - Options for OAuth HMAC-SHA1 signing. See documentation above.
- hawk - Options for Hawk signing. The credentials key must contain the necessary signing info, see hawk docs for details.
- aws - object containing AWS signing information. Should have the properties key, secret. Also requires the property bucket, unless you’re specifying your bucket as part of the path, or the request doesn’t use a bucket (i.e. GET Services)
- httpSignature - Options for the HTTP Signature Scheme using Joyent's library. The keyId and key properties must be specified. See the docs for other options.

---

- followRedirect - follow HTTP 3xx responses as redirects (default: true). This property can also be implemented as function which gets response object as a single argument and should return true if redirects should continue or false otherwise.
- followAllRedirects - follow non-GET HTTP 3xx responses as redirects (default: false)
- maxRedirects - the maximum number of redirects to follow (default: 10)
- removeRefererHeader - removes the referer header when a redirect happens (default: false). Note: if true, referer header set in the initial request is preserved during redirect chain.

---

- encoding - Encoding to be used on setEncoding of response data. If null, the body is returned as a Buffer. Anything else (including the default value of undefined) will be passed as the encoding parameter to toString() (meaning this is effectively utf8 by default). (Note: if you expect binary data, you should set encoding: null.)
- gzip - If true, add an Accept-Encoding header to request compressed content encodings from the server (if not already present) and decode supported content encodings in the response. Note: Automatic decoding of the response content is performed on the body data returned through request (both through the request stream and passed to the callback function) but is not performed on the response stream (available from the response event) which is the unmodified http.IncomingMessage object which may contain compressed data. See example below.
- jar - If true, remember cookies for future use (or define your custom cookie jar; see examples section)

---

- agent - http(s).Agent instance to use
- agentClass - alternatively specify your agent's class name
- agentOptions - and pass its options. Note: for HTTPS see tls API doc for TLS/SSL options and the documentation above.
- forever - set to true to use the forever-agent Note: Defaults to http(s).Agent({keepAlive:true}) in node 0.12+
- pool - An object describing which agents to use for the request. If this option is omitted the request will use the global agent (as long as your options allow for it). Otherwise, request will search the pool for your custom agent. If no custom agent is found, a new agent will be created and added to the pool. Note: pool is used only when the agent option is not specified.
- A maxSockets property can also be provided on the pool object to set the max number of sockets for all agents created (ex: pool: {maxSockets: Infinity}).
- Note that if you are sending multiple requests in a loop and creating
multiple new pool objects, maxSockets will not work as intended. To
work around this, either use request.defaults
with your pool options or create the pool object with the maxSockets
property outside of the loop.
- timeout - Integer containing the number of milliseconds to wait for a
server to send response headers (and start the response body) before aborting
the request. Note that if the underlying TCP connection cannot be established,
the OS-wide TCP connection timeout will overrule the timeout option ([the
default in Linux can be anywhere from 20-120 seconds][linux-timeout]).

[linux-timeout]: http://www.sekuda.com/overriding_the_default_linux_kernel_20_second_tcp_socket_connect_timeout

---

- localAddress - Local interface to bind for network connections.
- proxy - An HTTP proxy to be used. Supports proxy Auth with Basic Auth, identical to support for the url parameter (by embedding the auth info in the uri)
- strictSSL - If true, requires SSL certificates be valid. Note: to use your own certificate authority, you need to specify an agent that was created with that CA as an option.
- tunnel - controls the behavior of
HTTP CONNECT tunneling
as follows:
- undefined (default) - true if the destination is https, false otherwise
- true - always tunnel to the destination by making a CONNECT request to
the proxy
- false - request the destination as a GET request.
- proxyHeaderWhiteList - A whitelist of headers to send to a
tunneling proxy.
- proxyHeaderExclusiveList - A whitelist of headers to send
exclusively to a tunneling proxy and not to destination.

---

- time - If true, the request-response cycle (including all redirects) is timed at millisecond resolution, and the result provided on the response's elapsedTime property.
- har - A HAR 1.2 Request Object, will be processed from HAR format into options overwriting matching values (see the HAR 1.2 section for details)

The callback argument gets 3 arguments:

1. An error when applicable (usually from http.ClientRequest object)
2. An http.IncomingMessage object
3. The third is the response body (String or Buffer, or JSON object if the json option is supplied)

back to top


---

Convenience methods

There are also shorthand methods for different HTTP METHODs and some other conveniences.

$3

This method returns a wrapper around the normal request API that defaults
to whatever options you pass to it.

Note: request.defaults() does not modify the global request API;
instead, it returns a wrapper that has your default settings applied to it.

Note: You can call .defaults() on the wrapper that is returned from
request.defaults to add/override defaults that were previously defaulted.

For example:
`js
//requests using baseRequest() will set the 'x-token' header
var baseRequest = request.defaults({
headers: {'x-token': 'my-token'}
})

//requests using specialRequest() will include the 'x-token' header set in
//baseRequest and will also include the 'special' header
var specialRequest = baseRequest.defaults({
headers: {special: 'special value'}
})
`

$3

Same as request(), but defaults to method: "PUT".

`js
request.put(url)
`

$3

Same as request(), but defaults to method: "PATCH".

`js
request.patch(url)
`

$3

Same as request(), but defaults to method: "POST".

`js
request.post(url)
`

$3

Same as request(), but defaults to method: "HEAD".

`js
request.head(url)
`

$3

Same as request(), but defaults to method: "DELETE".

`js
request.del(url)
`

$3

Same as request() (for uniformity).

`js
request.get(url)
`


$3

Function that creates a new cookie.

`js
request.cookie('key1=value1')
`


$3

Function that creates a new cookie jar.

`js
request.jar()
`

back to top


---

Debugging

There are at least three ways to debug the operation of request:

1. Launch the node process like NODE_DEBUG=request node script.js
(lib,request,otherlib works too).

2. Set require('request').debug = true at any time (this does the same thing
as #1).

3. Use the request-debug module to
view request and response headers and bodies.

back to top


---

Timeouts

Most requests to external servers should have a timeout attached, in case the
server is not responding in a timely manner. Without a timeout, your code may
have a socket open/consume resources for minutes or more.

There are two main types of timeouts: connection timeouts and **read
timeouts**. A connect timeout occurs if the timeout is hit while your client is
attempting to establish a connection to a remote machine (corresponding to the
[connect() call][connect] on the socket). A read timeout occurs any time the
server is too slow to send back a part of the response.

These two situations have widely different implications for what went wrong
with the request, so it's useful to be able to distinguish them. You can detect
timeout errors by checking err.code for an 'ETIMEDOUT' value. Further, you
can detect whether the timeout was a connection timeout by checking if the
err.connect property is set to true.

`js
request.get('http://10.255.255.1', {timeout: 1500}, function(err) {
console.log(err.code === 'ETIMEDOUT');
// Set to true if the timeout was a connection timeout, false or
// undefined otherwise.
console.log(err.connect === true);
process.exit(0);
});
`

[connect]: http://linux.die.net/man/2/connect

Examples:

`js
var request = require('request')
, rand = Math.floor(Math.random()*100000000).toString()
;
request(
{ method: 'PUT'
, uri: 'http://mikeal.iriscouch.com/testjs/' + rand
, multipart:
[ { 'content-type': 'application/json'
, body: JSON.stringify({foo: 'bar', _attachments: {'message.txt': {follows: true, length: 18, 'content_type': 'text/plain' }}})
}
, { body: 'I am an attachment' }
]
}
, function (error, response, body) {
if(response.statusCode == 201){
console.log('document saved as: http://mikeal.iriscouch.com/testjs/'+ rand)
} else {
console.log('error: '+ response.statusCode)
console.log(body)
}
}
)
`

For backwards-compatibility, response compression is not supported by default.
To accept gzip-compressed responses, set the gzip option to true. Note
that the body data passed through request is automatically decompressed
while the response object is unmodified and will contain compressed data if
the server sent a compressed response.

`js
var request = require('request')
request(
{ method: 'GET'
, uri: 'http://www.google.com'
, gzip: true
}
, function (error, response, body) {
// body is the decompressed response body
console.log('server encoded the data as: ' + (response.headers['content-encoding'] || 'identity'))
console.log('the decoded data is: ' + body)
}
).on('data', function(data) {
// decompressed data as it is received
console.log('decoded chunk: ' + data)
})
.on('response', function(response) {
// unmodified http.IncomingMessage object
response.on('data', function(data) {
// compressed data as it is received
console.log('received ' + data.length + ' bytes of compressed data')
})
})
`

Cookies are disabled by default (else, they would be used in subsequent requests). To enable cookies, set jar to true (either in defaults or options).

`js
var request = request.defaults({jar: true})
request('http://www.google.com', function () {
request('http://images.google.com')
})
`

To use a custom cookie jar (instead of request’s global cookie jar), set jar to an instance of request.jar() (either in defaults or options)

`js
var j = request.jar()
var request = request.defaults({jar:j})
request('http://www.google.com', function () {
request('http://images.google.com')
})
`

OR

`js
var j = request.jar();
var cookie = request.cookie('key1=value1');
var url = 'http://www.google.com';
j.setCookie(cookie, url);
request({url: url, jar: j}, function () {
request('http://images.google.com')
})
`

To use a custom cookie store (such as a
FileCookieStore
which supports saving to and restoring from JSON files), pass it as a parameter
to request.jar():

`js
var FileCookieStore = require('tough-cookie-filestore');
// NOTE - currently the 'cookies.json' file must already exist!
var j = request.jar(new FileCookieStore('cookies.json'));
request = request.defaults({ jar : j })
request('http://www.google.com', function() {
request('http://images.google.com')
})
`

The cookie store must be a
tough-cookie
store and it must support synchronous operations; see the
CookieStore API docs
for details.

To inspect your cookie jar after a request:

`js
var j = request.jar()
request({url: 'http://www.google.com', jar: j}, function () {
var cookie_string = j.getCookieString(url); // "key1=value1; key2=value2; ..."
var cookies = j.getCookies(url);
// [{key: 'key1', value: 'value1', domain: "www.google.com", ...}, ...]
})
``

back to top